Please don't read this. Seriously, just skip on down to the thing about Fireteam Reloaded. Also, please don't post a comment about what a loser I am for saying what I'm about to say. You think I don't know already?

But wouldn't it have been cool if there was an MMO inside Grand Theft Auto IV? It wouldn't have to be epic. It wouldn't even have to be good. It could have even cost Niko $15 each time he logged in. Lord knows, GTA4 could use a money sink or two.

But everything was in place for Rockstar to get super-meta and make fun of us MMO players even more than they already do with their Loot & Wank VIII jokes. Because if they're going to make a fake internet, it needs a fake MMO. Heck, they could have just licensed Progress Quest and stuck an Achievement at the end of some high level of advancement. I would have done it. It couldn't have possibly been any worse than the pigeon hunting.

There's nothing that says post-modern, hip, meta, and ironically self-aware like games within games: virtual worlds nested inside each other like a Russian doll of cyber-realities. Geometry Wars in Project Gotham Racing, the GamePig handheld gaming system in System Shock 2, or pazaak in Knights of the Old Republic.

As much as I love what Rockstar did in GTA4, I don't imagine they're clever enough to put this into their downloadable content. However, the developers of Saints Row 2 have given themselves a couple more months to work on their game. If anyone can pick up the ball(s) Rockstar dropped, it's the guys at Volition. After all, what's a little grind to an entire sandbox?